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Wednesday, October 13, 2010

209. "Division" by New Musik


Requested by Chris Franz.

This one got away from me... it was originally going to be totally acoustic, and then I got the idea to lay in my version of the synth lines as well. And then I picked up an electric instead of an acoustic, and this thing just started to happen. The only bit remaining of the acoustic idea is that there's nothing on here even vaguely resembling either a drum machine or a full drum kit, which is pretty weird. My favorite part of my version comes at the very end...

There's a part of the lyric that I really like, intentional or not. The song talks about "division" as if it's a kind of force of its own, as if instead of ideologies splitting off and separating from each other, there's this thing, "division", that drives the wedge from outside, and without which things would be much more harmonious. Which is interesting in itself, but the chorus contains the line "just because division wants it", and part of me hears "division" just for a moment as like a branch of some kind of huge government or corporation that enforces its will on the people in the song, a Big Brother type of deal. "Better radio Division for instructions." For one reason or another, I always get the feeling that something Orwellian and legitimately paranoia-inducing is just around the corner in genuine '80s synthpop tunes. Maybe it was the Reagan-Thatcher era, or maybe it was just all the cocaine that people were doing... or perhaps just the fact that 1984 came and went with that kind of thing as its soundtrack.

Personnel: Rex

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